City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Jalil Bethea and Nick Coval have spent the last two summers learning exactly what the other can do on the court.

Teammates from March through July with Nike-backed Team Final in both the 2022 and 2023 offseasons, they’ve played against some of the best competition in the country, in front of hundreds of Division I coaches, the two high-scoring guards piling up offers before their respective commitments to Miami (Fl.) and Davidson.

Now, they’re going head-to-head in the state semifinals, as Bethea’s Archbishop Wood side and Coval’s Parkland High squad meet on Tuesday evening, 7:30 p.m. at Norristown High School. One of them will play for a state championship in Hershey; the other’s illustrious high school career will be over.

“It’s pretty cool, we played them last year but it was not nearly the stakes as what it is now,” Coval said, referring to a 68-49 regular-season Wood win at Parkland on Feb. 8, 2023. “I’m looking forward to the matchup and it’s a semifinal, so whatever we have off the court, we’re going to put that away and grind and compete.”

A pair of District 3 teams, Reading and Central York, will meet Tuesday night at Warwick High School in the other state semifinal. The championship game is Saturday at 8 p.m., the last of 12 state championship games at the GIANT Center.

Both Bethea and Coval have developed reputations for being some of the best bucket-getters around, even if their careers have developed at different rates. 

A 6-foot-2 combo guard, Coval has been a four-year starter for Parkland (24-5), winning league co-MVP honors as a freshman. That launched him to a career that’s seen him become not just Parkland’s all-time leading scorer but the program’s first ever with 2,000 points, a number he passed at the end of February. 

Bethea played JV ball as a freshman, stuck behind Wood’s fantastic 2021 graduating class. He moved into the varsity lineup as a sophomore, though it wasn’t until last season that he really established himself as one of the best scorers in the region and one of the best shooters in the entire country. 

Now 6-4, he showed that scoring ability by putting in 18 of his game-high 31 points in the fourth quarter of Wood’s 67-61 quarterfinal win over Spring-Ford, including a couple off-balance, quick-release 3-pointers and a poster slam as the Vikings finished strong.

“He can get going really quickly and he’s an incredible shot-maker,” Coval said. “He can shoot off the dribble, shoot off the pass, he can get to the rim, so he’s going to be difficult to contain. Just try to make life difficult for him, that’s the main goal.”

Coval scored 19 points as Parkland beat the other Catholic League squad in the 6A field, Roman Catholic, on Saturday. It’s the first time the Trojans have been in the state semifinals since 2004, when first-year head coach Eddie Ohlson was a senior on a team that finished as state runner-ups. 

Wood was last in the state title game two years ago, losing to Roman Catholic. The Vikings have only one state championship in program history, Collin Gillespie and Co. getting it done in 2017. 

Of course, both have strong supporting casts. Bethea’s is led by Drexel commit Josh Reed, the muscular 6-2 combo guard who’s the team’s biggest rebounding threat, but juniors Mike Green, Deuce Maxey and Milan Dean Jr. are all threats with the ball in their hands, and senior forward Tahir Howell gives them some size and length up front at 6-4.

Parkland got great quarterfinal efforts from senior guard Jayden Thomas (15 points, 8 rebounds) and senior forward Zaire Smaltz (6 points, 10 rebounds), while seniors Robbie Ruisch, Luke Spang and freshman Blake Nassry fill in their roles. 

“Guys like Jayden Thomas and Zaire Smaltz, they’ve stepped into bigger roles this year and they’re peaking right now,” Coval said. “They’re performing great, every single game, they’re just producing, and it’s translating to wins.”